Sang Yup Lee

Dr Lee is Distinguished Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He is currently the Dean of KAIST Institutes, Director of BioProcess Engineering Research Center, and Director of Bioinformatics Research Center. He served as a Founding Dean of College of Life Science and Bioengineering. Dr Lee is a pioneer of systems metabolic engineering, one of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies by World Economic Forum 2016, developing microbial bioprocesses to produce the world’s first engineered plastic raw materials and gasoline as well as artificial spider silk stronger than steel. He also developed DeepDDI, the AI deep learning framework that accurately predicts drug-drug and drug-food interactions, and the virtual cell model to accurately predict cancer cell metabolism and enable precision medicine treatment. He has published more than 580 journal papers, 82 books/book chapters, and more than 630 patents, many of which he licensed. He received numerous awards, including the National Order of Merit, National Science Medal, and he is the first Asian scientist to receive James Bailey Award and Marvin Johnson Award. He is editor-in-chief of Biotechnology Journal (Wiley) and Metabolic Engineering (Elsevier), and an editor and editorial board member of 30 international journals. He is a member of the Global Future Council on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, and he served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology of Korea, Government Performance Evaluation Committee. His research areas are metabolic engineering, systems biology, synthetic biology, systems medicine, industrial biotechnology, and nanobiotechnology.